eMusic Features

Jug band music originated in Louisville, Kentucky, around 1905, but reached its fullest flowering in Memphis in the 1920s. Though there were others, two groups in particular dominated Beale Street: the Memphis Jug Band, led by Will Shade, and Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. The former came first and was more popular at the time, but it's the Cannon/Stompers legacy that has best endured. In 1963 the Rooftop Singers, a Greenwich Village folk trio featuring Erik… more »